Ruby on Rails patches new batch of critical vulnerabilities

Those using the Ruby on Rails web application framework on their websites are being advised to update the software immediately after multiple new vulnerabilities were found. It's the second time this month that Rails has been patched because of serious flaws.

Jeremy Kirk
January 9, 2013

IDG News Service

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Those using the Ruby on Rails web application framework on their websites are being advised to update the software immediately after multiple new vulnerabilities were found. It is the second time this month that Rails has been patched because of serious flaws.

Ruby on Rails is an open source web application development framework that is widely used across the internet on websites including Hulu, GroupOn and Scribd.

One of the problems, CVE-2013-0156, lies in the parameter parsing code for Ruby on Rails, which would allow attackers to bypass authentication systems, perform SQL injection attacks or a denial of service attack against applications using Rails, according to an advisory issued yesterday. A SQL injection attack involves sending commands through a web-based form to a website's backend database, which, if not protected properly, can return sensitive data.

The second issue, CVE-2013-0155, would allow an attacker to send unexpected database queries with the command "IS NULL" due to the way Active Record interprets parameters in combination with the way that JSON parameters are parsed, according to another writeup.

The writeup advised that this particular vulnerability is a variant of CVE-2012-2660 and CVE-2012-2694. "Even if you upgraded to address those issues, you must take action again," it said.

Four updated versions of Rails were released yesterday: 3.2.11, 3.1.10, 3.0.19, and 2.3.15, according to Rails. "These releases contain two extremely critical security fixes so please update immediately," it advised.

It's the second time this month that Rails has been updated due to critical vulnerabilities. Rails versions 3.2.10, 3.1.9, and 3.0.18 were released on January 2 to address CVE-2012-5664, a SQL injection vulnerability.

Rails apologised for releasing that patch so close to the holiday break, but said that "regrettably the exploit has already been publicly disclosed, and we don't feel we can delay the release."